Some Things Aren't Funny
by Zilindico
Summary: Daria-Silent HIll crossover. Leave it to Daria and Jane to get stuck in a place like Silent Hill. Mystery, murder, and monotone ensue as the duo try to survive the one place worse than Lawndale. Eventual strong violence and language.
1. I Must Be On Another Planet

_AN: In terms of genres and media, a Daria / Silent Hill crossover might seem like a major stretch, but when you look at it real hard, just about anybody can end up in Silent Hill, and besides, the monsters would probably be more afraid of Daria and her monotone. =) _

Anyway, I'm trying to write this story as true to the original source material as possible, since I'm a huge fan of both Daria and Silent Hill. Don't worry, I'll try my hardest to keep everyone from going OOC or events from turning ridiculous--I love "Daria" too much to do that to them. =) 

And of course, I don't own anything, because I'm a poor college student. =P

Episode 1: I Must Be On Another Planet 

"So, explain to me again what I'm doing here." Daria continued staring blankly out the car window, though not exactly at the mundane surroundings of this vacant section of highway. 

"Trent's car exploded during an out-of-state gig and showered flames everywhere and caused a 10-mile-wide nuclear crisis." Jane explained while driving one-handed through this damn fog. 

"Either that or the rusted shell decided to return to that great car dealership in the sky." Daria monotoned. 

"Yeah, whatever. Besides, the last thing I wanna do is drive out to the middle of nowhere all by myself and get kidnapped by a bunch of sex-crazed hillbillies." 

"Damn, my secret dream destroyed." 

They shared a smirk, at least until Jane stuck her head out the window to try and get a better look through the pea-soup haze. It's not that she was worried or anything--they hadn't really seen any cars on the highway for the past half hour--it's just that the last thing she needed was to miss her exit and pass Trent by an entire state. He owed her big time for this, that's for sure. 

"Jane, look out!" Not even near a true concerned tone from Daria, but nevertheless it caught the artist by surprise and caused her to smack her neck on the door top. She got her head inside just in time to see the road barricade and hit the brakes. 

Rubbing her aching neck, Jane grumbled, "You couldn't seem just a _bit_ more concerned about our safety?" 

Her typical look: "I'm sorry, I didn't think the road blocks were protecting us from a bottomless pit set solely for our doom." 

Jane tried to look in any available direction for a sign of any kind as to indicate their general area. The fog rather obscured her view any farther than ten feet away besides those roadblocks. "I don't suppose _you_ know where we are." 

"The sign behind us said 'the middle of nowhere,' if memory serves me." 

"Right. Let's just back this baby up." 

The car reversed enough to let them pull a U-turn through the unblocked median, though that proved useless when the way they just came was filled with signs and construction horses and the like, enough garbage to keep them from simply driving through or around. Daria groaned, "Tell me that didn't just happen." 

Curses quietly made their way out of Jane's mouth as she finagled with the gears and made another attempt at accomplishing their great escape. Of course, politeness in the volume of her voice completely failed when the road back, on both sides, seemed stuffed with work signs and misplaced iron fences and those water-filled plastic barrels that are only ever useful in action movies. 

"Daria, tell me it was the hillbillies that did that, otherwise I'm gonna get really creeped out." 

"And I thought I had problems. Jane, it's just the fog. We're probably just not seeing the whole picture here. Why don't I just get out and take a look around?" 

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Jane actually wore a semi-concerned expression. 

Already starting to open the door, Daria stated, "What could possibly happen?" 

Just the slightest bit edgy in this fog, Jane called out, "Hey, if it's a bunch of geeky teen pranksters, flash your boobs at 'em, they'll run away blinded!" 

Daria stayed close to the barricades as she walked, making sure she was actually following a "wall" instead of walking out in front of open highway traffic, wherever it was. She wasn't exactly afraid of anything jumping out at her; if she could survive Lawndale, what's the worst that could happen out here? 

Oh great, they were stuck; the garbage dump ran all the way from one end of the lanes to the other. Just great. "Oh, wait." Just at the edge of her vision was an exit ramp leading… well, she couldn't tell, but it was still a road of some kind leading somewhere else, plus there was a small, barely noticeable detour sign right beside it once she looked harder. 

One step back to the car, and a thick raindrop smacked her on top of the head. "Oh no you did not." A great boom of thunder and a sudden increase in wind. Daria sighed. "I'm sorry, I'll be good." 

A downpour really started once she got back in the car. "So?" Jane quickly asked. 

"So the hillbillies said I could be a model in their monthly magazine, and there's an exit back over that way." 

"You're the boss." 

One last shifting of the gears, and Jane moved the car one more time back where they came from and down the exit ramp. It wasn't long before the highway scenery was replaced by a lot of pine trees and a darker fog. And then there was the lone sign: "Welcome To Hell." No, wait, it was "Welcome To Silent Hill," just with some dark graffiti done over it to make it look like it said Hell. 

Jane quipped, "You know, if we die horrible, horrible deaths, it's going to be your fault." 

"Funny, you said the same thing when we turned Trent's underwear pink in the washer." 

"Yeah, but at least that was funny, this is serious." 

"If you say so." 

Ten rainy minutes of driving through thick forest on a road that slowly downgraded in quality over time to a plain gravel with periodic dips, turned out to be serious. It was impossible to see to their sides any further than the front line of trees, and seeing in front or behind them was just as futile. Even Daria was starting to wonder where the hell they were--no pun intended, she thought to herself. 

Jane tapped her fingers nervously on her knee for a while until she suddenly blurted out she needed something to distract herself with, so she flipped on the radio. Nothing came through but… 

"Um, Jane, is that white noise or have I distanced myself from the modern world too much?" 

"Damn trees and rain must be blocking the signal or something." 

Jane gave the dashboard a hard pound with the bottom of her fist a moment before the car instantly made a 360 degree turn from a huge force striking the tail end of the vehicle, effectively ripping off a huge chunk of metal along with at least a third of the tire, which gave no stopping power to prevent Daria's side of the car from finally smashing into one of the trees and ending the merry-go-round. Shattered glass glittered like diamonds among the wet gravel of the road, and only the sounds of the rain and car horn pierced the silence.


	2. Anywhere But Here

_AN: In case anyone was wondering, there's no real set time that this story's taking place, though if I was forced to make one up, I'd say the first summer break after "Daria-IICY?" and before "Silent Hill 3." Also, this story'll probably get a lot more interesting once I get "Silent Hill 4." _  
  


Episode 2: Anywhere But Here

"When I open my eyes, I better be surrounded by a bunch of hot naked guys and just suffering from a sex hangover, not bent over in the driver's seat of my car with blood running down my head." 

Jane went and opened her eyes. Of course, the situation she was really hoping against was really true. Her head was practically fused with the steering wheel, the blood from the injury in the process of traveling down the length of her body; it probably would've made an interesting painting. Well, obviously can't paint if you're dead, so she carefully lifted her head, being mindful of the sting and thankful it made the horn stop, and took a look around. Damn, even worse was the fact that they were still in the middle of the foggy forest, rain pouring down, and--oh hell, Daria looked out cold. 

"Daria! Hey, Daria!" 

"The number you are dialing is not in service." 

The writer had pieces of glass in her hair and an apparently fake airbag in her face, that saved her life--well, sort of. "Explain to me why there's a half-empty pillow with suspicious stains, now forcefully applied to my face and threatening to smother me." 

"Hmph, that's the last time I buy a car from Happy Herb's." 

Jane helped pull her back to rest against the seat. She looked relatively unscathed, just with a bit of a knock on side of the head. Jane, on the other hand… 

"Oh hell. Jane, don't move." 

As Daria lightly fumbled around for something to wrap Jane's head in, the artist said sarcastically, "You, Daria, expressing emotion and worry?" 

"It's always funny till somebody gets a massive concussion." 

Daria found some art cloths stuffed in the glove compartment and pressed them to Jane's head injuries. "I'd use my shirt to tie them down, but then we'd be bleeding _and_ naked." Jane forced a smirk. "You'll be fine after you keep pressure on it for awhile." 

The artist took a few looks around, frowned at the rain which fell at a reduced rate under the thickness of the trees, and announced, "I'm guessing it's futile to even try to start the car, but here I go anyway." 

She turned the key; not even a sound. A few more furious clicks of metal and key chains, and Jane gave up. She reclined and mused with her eyes closed for a few moments, then got out of the car, with Daria right behind her. 

The missing piece of car was what made them more nervous than anything else; cars don't exactly come apart like jigsaw puzzles. Even a really, really big dear running at speeds beyond normal deer speeds couldn't have done this; at least they strongly hoped not. 

Grumpy, standing with one hand on the cloths and one on her hip, Jane muttered, "I should've just let Trent take my car." 

"Then we would've driven Trent's car and been incinerated in a flaming ball of death instead of just getting whiplash, all the family fun we could have." 

"Hm, you got a point there. So, what now, oh wise one?" 

Daria took a glance down both directions, each looking exactly the same except for the broken glass. "We could either go back to the highway and hope there's a working car within fifty miles of here, or we could go to Silent Hell and hope it's not comprised of cannibals or Jehovah's Witnesses." 

A loud crack of thunder; Jane looked both ways quickly and said, "I vote for the quiet place." 

The path was plain, no signs that there was even a town to soon appear from this damn fog. As far as they knew, the town could have disappeared decades ago, which wasn't exactly a pleasant scenario. 

An untold amount of time later, Daria noticed Jane let out a sigh of thought, which broke the silence between them. "Out with it, already." 

Jane grunted, then explained, "I'm not sure, but the more I think about it, the more I swear I've heard of this Silent Hill place. Probably on 'Sick Sad World' or something, but the name sounds faintly familiar…" 

The sound of a distant buzzing caught their attention. A quick thought jumped to Jane's attention: "Daria, please tell me that's not a chainsaw maniac coming to kill us." 

"I'm sure it's just Satan pissed that someone messed with the thermostat." 

Another minute of walking brought them out of the thick forest and finally onto something of a more conventional road. Unfortunately, the area to the right was blocked by even more damn garbage construction equipment things, though there happened to be a 2X4 and a running chainsaw beside each other among the mix, just laying on the ground without a user in sight. While Daria started walking off to the left, Jane instead went towards the various items. 

"Um, Jane, what are you doing?" 

The artist knelt down by the equipment, saying in a contemplative voice, "I dunno, I just feel compelled to look at this stuff." 

So Daria went and stood beside her. "Are you saying we should take this stuff in order to protect ourselves from the untold horrors of the night?" She bent over and picked up the 2X4, then put it down just as quickly. "Yeah, I don't think so." 

Jane agreed and started to walk with her down the road, saying, "I don't think I'm up for a night of mass murder anyway." 

The sounds of rain colliding with huge puddles was their only companion down the lonely walk towards civilization. The only glimmer of hope so far was a street sign at a small intersection: Brown Street and Harris Road. 

"Um, Daria, can I tell you this place gives me the creeps?" 

"Only if you're not expecting psychological counseling." Something caught Daria's attention. "What was that?" 

"What was what?" 

"That noise. It sounded like a wolf's howl or something." 

"I hope you're just getting paranoid." 

"Me, too." 

A house finally formed in the fog, off to the right on the side of the road. The walls had no siding, just that paper stuff with the brand name on it; the lawn was only disheveled mud; and the windows were cracked near the point of breaking. The house looked like it was still in the process of being built. 

"Jane, I don't think anyone could be living here, so let's keep walking." 

"Hey, no one there or not, I'd at least like to get out of this damn rain." 

Jane approached the door while Daria continued standing in the street. Two knocks, waiting, pounding on the door, waiting, then checking the doorknob. 

"The lock's broken. This door can't be opened." 

Daria gave her blank stare. "Excuse me?" 

"No, look." 

The writer came over and checked where her friend was pointing. From the doorknob hung a small little note, reading what Jane has said just a moment ago. 

"Cute," the artist muttered before ramming her shoulder hard into the door. Wood snapped and splintered under the attack, opening the door about halfway. One more hit should-- 

"Jane…" 

"Huh?" 

She turned to look where Daria was staring, out into the street, just past the extent of the lawn. Jane would've called it a dog, if not for the fact that its skin appeared to be missing, and that its eyes appeared to glow red through the fog, and probably because of the fact that its teeth seemed highly exaggerated, like the kind of ridiculous fangs one might see in a children's drawing. And let's not forget it was staring directly at the two girls and growling like it had a squirrel stuck in its throat. 

Daria muttered, "Looks like Benji's off the leash." 

Jane didn't take the time to make a pithy comment, instead quickly resuming her break-in tactics and shattering the doorframe with another shoulder hit. As smoothly as she could manage, she grabbed Daria by the arm, pulled her inside, and proceeded to put pressure on the door to hold it closed. Daria didn't see the need until the fragile generic door shook with the force of a Lawndale quarterback, not a sickly dog; that was all she needed to see before giving Jane a little extra force. The sound of nails carving up the door continued for maybe thirty seconds before finally stopping. 

Another moment passed, and Jane finally breathed a sigh of relief. She took a quick look at their surroundings before pulling over the dinning room table and having Daria help her prop it up against the door. 

The writer quipped, "I told you to start keeping milkbones for just such an emergency." 

Jane sat down on the floor, leaned back against the table, and wiped the sweat from her forehead; hm, still a little blood; she had completely forgotten about the cloths once she saw that dog--or whatever it was. "Um, Daria, have I ever mentioned I have a fear of dogs, the big scary bitey snappy kind?" 

"I never would have guessed, what with the running and screaming." 

"Daria, this isn't funny." 

"Who's laughing? We were almost just eaten by Lassie's evil twin." 

Jane sighed. "So what do we do now?" 

"We look for an alternate exist while wishing we brought that chainsaw with us." 

The artist shivered at the thought of turning that dog to beef jerky and got up to look around. All in all, the house looked very plain: simple wallpaper, apartment-sized kitchen and bedrooms, practically nothing of any value or distinction whatsoever. Silent Hill must be an old persons type of town or something. 

Daria listened to the mostly muted rain while searching the fridge for something to eat or at least drink; hm, nothing but some small brown bottles that read "health drinks." "I think I'll take my chances without the drugs." 

And then she caught sight of the kitchen knives, sheathed in their block of wood. "Let's see: something rips metal clean off the car, skinless dogs prowl in the open, and there's no one around to help us. Maybe I should hang onto one of these." 

While not exactly a fan of knives under any circumstances, the thought of being cornered by that dog or any kind of strange beast or person and having no means of self-defense was not the most comforting scenario. What could be the harm in hanging onto a giant knife capable of killing a man with a single stab? As long as she didn't start saying "redrum." 

With slowness matching her reluctance with this idea, she grasped the handle of one of the ten knives in the set and carefully pulled it out of the block--until she saw the blood on the blade, conveniently left almost entirely on the end of the utensil. Daria let out a surprised "eep" before letting the knife drop to the floor, just barely missing her feet. 

Jane called out from the next room, "Hey, what's the matter?" 

Deep breath… "Only my fear of elderly cooking." 

One more try, with a different knife. She followed the same routine, this time with a knife that came out clean. Not wanting to freak Jane out, she hooked the knife onto the inside of her jacket so that it would be hidden from view. 

"Yo, hey, Daria! Come look at this." 

"Let me put on my unhappy face first." 

Daria went looking for Jane and found her in the bedroom. She looked with her usual stare at what caught her friend's attention, then raised her hand to her ear, like a phone, and said, "Yes, Silent Hill Insane Asylum? I'd like to make a reservation."


	3. Not So Silent Anymore

Episode 3: Not So Silent Anymore

"When crazy samurai get revenge on the elderly, tonight on Sick Sad World." 

Both girls stared at the bizarre set-up before them: a bed with a blood stain resembling a human body, complete with a bloody katana jammed straight down through the middle, pinning a relatively blood-free newspaper in place. 

"This would be an awesome painting if I wasn't on the verge of pissing my panties." 

They split up and walked around opposite sides of the bed, trying to get a closer look. Something had to be going on, as it wasn't like lunatic Japanese warriors to come to abandoned little towns for the sole purpose of murdering geriatrics. Jane took a tossed-aside sweater from the floor and used it to grab the hilt of the sword, which also happened to have blood on it, as if the old lady of the house was inflated like a balloon before she received the pinprick, or maybe like it was a _Kill Bill_ movie. 

The artist quickly glanced left and right before wiping the blood from the sword off on the bed. "Would it bother you if I hung onto this for now?" 

"Not unless you're bothered by the kitchen knife in my jacket." 

"Somehow I can't see you as a serial killer, and yet it's always the ones you least suspect." 

A little smirk passed between them, brief but necessary if they were going to retain their sanity. 

The sound of a door opening and closing; someone was here, and it probably wasn't a pizza delivery boy. A shiver of panic lightly passed through them as they started inching toward the entrance of the room, but they didn't get very far before catching a young man of mid-twenties, with about as much fear and killer intentions as they had, a pistol in each hand. Wavy, hazel hair faintly hid a pair of emerald eyes that shook with the memory of more encounters than this one. Dressed all in black, with leather straps holding to his back what looked to be a shotgun and a metal pipe, he stared both girls down for another tense moment before letting his hands start to drop to his sides, asking, "You're not monsters desiring the skin off my bones, are you?" 

Daria retorted to regain her composure, "Damn, our cover's blown." 

This was hastily followed by the sounds of many windows shattering back in the front of the house, where they came in, then lots of nails scrapping tile and tearing carpet. 

The young man cursed aloud before aiming his guns down the hallway and shouting to the girls, "Get out through the door behind me and keep running till you get to the café!" 

Demonic growling was all they needed to hear before following the stranger's orders. There was indeed a back door that led to a yard only partly surrounded by unpainted picket fence. Since walking is more Daria's forte than Jane's, she quickly fell behind, requiring her friend to grab her hand and give an uncomfortable pull towards wherever the hell they were running to; just a bunch of miscellaneous shops and buildings to their right, until there was the coveted Café Silencio. With the sounds of gunfire behind them, Jane yanked the café's door open and pulled them both inside, bumping the katana against the door and doorframe in her haste and unfamiliarity with this weapon. 

Her arm having nearly been pulled out of its socket, Daria tenderly rubbed her limb while attempting to catch her breath and be thankful the knife wasn't deciding to cut into her side. A quick glance around the compact establishment revealed the restaurant staples of round tables, chairs, counter and cash register, though with the added touches of boards nailed across the windows and bullets stacked on a corner booth. Oh, and then there was some writing scrawled in red on the back wall. 

Before she could analyze it, though, the stranger with guns burst inside and slammed the door behind himself, a rather breathless look upon his face. Jane let out a heavy sigh before stating, "Thanks, I really needed another heart attack today." 

He gave something of an embarrassed little smile before plopping down into one of the nearby chairs and attempting to breathe normally. A few moments passed before he asked, "Are you girls alright?" 

As she started walking towards the wall writing, Daria mused, "You'd be surprised what cross country running can do for the human body." 

She heard him let out a little laugh as she came within reading distance.   
  
_Mockingbirds rest with weary wings   
On branches soon to twist and crack.   
When will fate soon look away   
And let the poor birds fall to black?_   
  
"Funny, you didn't strike me as the poetic type." 

He looked up from his resting position and said, "I didn't write that. It was here when I found this place." 

Arms crossed as she rested against the counter, Jane piped up, "And how _did_ you find this place, mister…?" 

"Fisher. Derek Fisher. And you?" 

"Jane." 

"Daria. So, Mister Fisher, out with it, already." 

A sort of embarrassed look crossed his face, and he gazed down at the table in order to avoid the girls' stares. "Well… about 6 months before I came here, my girlfriend disappeared, and I don't mean just a simple 'she broke up with me and didn't say,' I mean she literately vanished, with police and APBs and the full works trying to find her. No luck. And then, a week before I came here, I received a letter from her, telling me to come to Silent Hill to find her." He laughed bitterly. "From what I've heard from a few other people in this town, that seems to be one of the common ways to draw sinners here." 

Daria demanded, "What's that supposed to mean?" 

"Hey, don't rush the story." His tone was non-threatening, so she let it drop. "Anyway, of course I had to check it out, mostly to find Marla, partly because I wanted to see if Silent Hill was what everyone said it was." 

"And what's that?" Jane asked. 

He met her gaze, filled with truth and harshness. "Hell." A little shiver of fear ran through the two girls. "About five years ago, everyone in this sleepy little resort town just vanished, almost the same as with Marla, except we're talking a much larger population. Since then, as Silent Hill has become slightly populated again and under the scrutiny of researchers and conspiracy theorists alike, dozens of bizarre murders and just as many disappearances have occurred within this town or been connected somehow. And so, me being a journalist, my interest was aroused when I realized I would have to come here. The only problem is, since I've been here, neither I nor anyone else I've encountered has been able to find a way out of town." 

Daria exuded a look of sarcasm and disbelief far stronger than usual, if such a thing were possible. "You have got to be kidding." 

"You'll see, and there's worse monsters out there than just the dogs. I'd really rather not remember the other things I've seen…" 

Jane scratched her head, groaning softly, before blurting out, "So what you're saying is, we're trapped inside the village of the damned, being hunted by Picasso's worst nightmares, and there's no rhyme or reason for any of it?" 

"More or less." 

Jane smacked her forehead. "This is _not happening._" 

Daria stated, "Now that you've explained that we're trapped in the loony bin, perhaps you can go back to that part about sinners being drawn here, because last I checked, sarcasm was only a sin in Lawndale High." 

The journalist shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Well, most of the people I've run into have been certifiable lunatics that you wouldn't wanna meet in dark alleys, all of them with some sort of horrible sins behind them." 

The two girls stared at him with their usual expressions, Daria eventually quipping, "Yeah, we're the mass murders you never knew, and what makes you Genghis Khan?" 

That uncomfortable look again. "Well… I kind of… cheated on Marla, shortly before she disappeared…" 

Jane raised a mocking eyebrow. "Yep, you're the Devil himself. C'mon, Daria, let's get outta here before he wants us to join his cult." 

She was about to open the door, but then Derek stopped her with a shout of "Hey!" He stood up, regained his composure, and asked directly, "How did you end up in this town?" 

"Driving down the highway, heading to pick up my brother from a gig." 

"So you're not eloping against family wishes, the next Thelma and Louise, or just some punks that think nothing of committing crimes?" 

Daria crossed her arms and said after a few beats, "Jane, you hold his testicles while I remove them with the kitchen knife." 

He jumped back and shook his hands in front of them, laughing nervously and shouting, "Hey hey, I'm just kidding, I just wanted to check, okay!?" He picked up one of his guns from the table and pulled a map from a back pocket, handing both to Daria while explaining, "Here, take these. Trust me, you'll need them." 

The writer held the handgun awkwardly until she gave it to Jane. "Here, I'd rather not be tempted to hurt any more stupid people we come across." She opened up the map of the general Silent Hill area, noticing the many marks of "x's," and asked, "So what's the best road to take to get as far away from this place as possible?" 

Groaning. "I told you, there's no way out, but I guess you have to see for yourselves. So where specifically did you come from and under what circumstances?" 

"Highway north of here. Road became blocked." 

"Right, okay, so what you might wanna try," He started pointing out his directions on the large map. "is go south into Central Silent Hill, and maybe try east to New Silent Hill. I'm not sure if the path is still open, but it's worth a shot. If that doesn't work, head west into Old Silent Hill, try to get up to the highway if you can, and if not go south from there and through the amusement park. I've met up with a few people that've decided to go that way, and I haven't seen them since they've gone, so…" 

Jane stated, "Yeah, it's a risk." 

"Bingo." He finally started to go, walking towards the door while giving a little gesture of his hand to wave goodbye. 

"Wait." He stopped at Daria's request. "One last question." 

"Shoot." 

"How long have you been here?" 

A thoughtful look crossed his face. "I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing a few weeks." 

"And the average lifespan of a Silent Hillian?" 

A bit of bashful despair, looking away. "I usually don't see any particular people more than twice." Finally he said, "Good luck," started to walk, then quickly stopped to say, "Hey, um, if you see a woman with the mark of Samael on her back… run like hell." 

So now he was finally gone. Jane glanced after him, down at the gun in her hand, then finally at Daria. "Now that we have a gun, should we make him our sex slave or our personal piggyback giver?" 

They shared a smirk, but Daria's was forced, as the tension and danger of this situation was slowly preying more and more upon her mind and insecurities. 


	4. Night Like Silver Glass

_AN: I noticed/realized that not everybody reading this story has good knowledge of Silent Hill, so I'll give an extremely brief overview of the history and rules of the town here before going much farther.  
A long while ago, a cult known simply as "The Order" existed within Silent Hill and held secret dark rituals meant to bring about the birth of the dark lord, Samael, who they often refered to specifically as God. Shortly before the first game, some sort of magicalness goofed and ended up consuming the town in darkness (there's no exact reason given). Although the exact nature of this darkness is unknown, it did cause every living thing in Silent Hill to vanish forever (or possibly turn into the demons). Harry Mason (hero in the first game) went on his little quest, found out all the truths, and managed to kill the incarnation of Samael/God, since, being born of a mortal, it itself was mortal; even though he saved the day and escaped, Silent Hill still remains consumed by darkness.  
Three main rules apply to Silent Hill, which more or less continue through all the games and in this story:  
1) The darkness is not restricted exclusively to Silent Hill, allowing it to slowly expand outward and can also affect specific people far away and surround them within the illusion/reality of SH. Also, anyone is capable of wandering inside SH, not everyone is coerced inside. Finally, the scenery itself will sometimes alter into a much darker form, preceeded by the blare of sirens.  
2) The darkness calls "sinners" to SH. This idea of "sinners" is rather vague, but in the past, it's mostly taken form in murderers and lunatics, but isn't restricted to these extremes. The "calling" in general is never explained, but it can sometimes come in the form of letters from the deceased or longing for the past.  
3) The monsters within SH take forms relating to a person's sins and/or fears. For example, James of SH2 sinned by killing his invalid wife, and witnessed monsters vaguely resembling people in straitjackets and nurses, but also fear-monsters like possessed mannequins. If a person has no sin, they can still see fear-based monsters. If a person is truly innocent (like the child Laura of SH2), they can pass freely without monster contact.  
I think that's all the background any non-SH fans need. Hopefully that was just enough to help out any holes in logic you might have had. Oh, and thanks for all the reviews so far! _

* * *

Episode 4: Night Like Silver Glass

Walking, walking, walking… Daria was getting very tired of walking, especially through drizzle and fog with the potential of violent apparitions jumping out and doing untold things to them. 

"Jane?" 

"What?" 

"Say something." 

"Why?" 

"This complete silence is getting to me." 

"Yeah, I don't blame you. Okay, let's see: My name is Jane, and I am walking. I am walking and my name is Jane." 

Daria sighed and continued walking, the feeling of completely saturated clothes not a pleasant one. They passed the antique shop, continued moving down Simmons Street, and then caught notice of the Silent Hill Town Center. 

Staring through the glass doors, Jane mused, "Hmph, never expected a town like this to actually have its own mall, even if it is a tiny little dump." 

The writer kept staring down their intended path, not really interested in any sight-seeing. A sound came to her ears, faint but real, like a combination of running water and rocks scraping against each other. Its maker then stepped out from the fog before her, though "stepped" wasn't exactly the right word, she decided. There were four "arms" and a "body," not much else, so four-limbed movement was what it did, the way you don't think of a dog or cat stepping. The "thing" was made of dirt-colored putty or clay, something malleable that caused it to be constantly in motion from quasi-liquidity. The form of its "arms" reminded Daria of the way plant vines will often curve and wrap around a metal bar or trellis, as they consisted of several strands of putty that held together to form arms but appeared to separate as the monster seemed to breathe in and out; an elongated bird cage, sealed on both ends, that was it. 

It continued to "stare" at the girls as Daria attempted to keep calm and tell her friend, "Jane, open the door. Open it now." 

The artist muttered a "huh?" before she caught a glimpse of the putty thing, then wasted no time at forcing open the door and pulling Daria in with her. The monster started rushing towards them the instant Daria moved, traveling at a fast enough speed to impact with the door immediately after it was shoved shut. A loud "squish" sound accompanied its crash into the door and subsequent splatter. Daria rushed over to a detached metal bench nearby and brought it over to Jane, who helped her prop it up against the doors and seal them shut. 

Jane cursed loudly as the two of them backed away immediately from the door and monster. The putty thing was squishing and spreading across the glass doors, as if trying to find any sort of opening to squeeze through. Laughing half-heartedly through her heavy breathing, Jane scoffed, "So much for 'when silly putty attacks.' Guess the horrors of Silent Hill aren't that bad after all." 

Daria wasn't ready to joke just yet. Once the putty thing had covered the full perimeter of the doors, rocks of various sizes--pebbles to large gravel--started to sift through the goo and press directly against the glass. After another moment, the force behind the rocks started causing minor cracks and scratches that gradually spread and reached to the sides. 

"Jesus Christ." Jane fumbled around in the back of her pants for the handgun, ignoring the katana still strung through one of her belt loops, pulled the gun out and aimed it at the putty thing. 

Daria quickly put her hand on the gun to make her lower it. "Yeah, I'd be afraid of a gun if I was Jell-O. Jane, let's just go, now, before it breaks the doors and lets everything in after us." 

She could hear the quickness and strength of the air coming out Jane's nose from their proximity and the danger. Jane was becoming too tense, too afraid, but then, Daria couldn't blame her; maybe they just had different ways of dealing. 

The artist finally agreed, and they started running the opposite direction, past the various little stores and restaurants, but ten seconds into their escape, they found something they did not expect. 

"Um, is there supposed to be a giant bottomless pit in the middle of the mall here?" 

The floor had suddenly stopped, as if ripped off by giant teeth, and everything beyond and underneath was darkness that slowly grew deeper and deeper as the lights from the front of the mall went out, one after another, traveling down towards the girls. Two escalators led up from where they were, the only possible way to go now. 

"Screw it, come on, let's go!" Jane shouted as she grabbed Daria by the hand and pulled her up the closest escalator, which would have been a lot more convenient if the machinery was working. 

The long run up, then a new corridor to escape down, bordering on the endless, black void; the sound of glass shattering far behind them caught the girls' attention only for a moment before a second putty thing now dropped from the ceiling in front of them. Jane cursed a second before one of the monster's arms lashed out and smashed her through the closest glass wall and against the display wall inside, quickly expanding to cover her face and much of her body. 

So now Daria was alone. She pulled out the kitchen knife from her jacket, took something of an attack stance… and froze. She was going to… stab this thing? Images of blades cutting flesh and blood pouring free, the movie-dramatized sounds of thin blades passing through air or through body parts, the memory of the touch of the knife gently running along the length of the arm… 

Her body convulsed with the understanding of what she needed to do: plunge a knife into… something, a "living" thing. _I…_ Her knees gave way and let her drop to the floor, only her hands supporting her. _I can't… do this…_

A "mouth" started to form from the closest middle-point of the creature, between two legs/arms, with many jagged pieces of glass and metal and rock acting as impromptu teeth. This "head" reached out at a slow rate towards the quivering girl-- 

Until an unearthly scream ripped from the "mouth" instead, like the dreaded chalkboard-scrapping sound--one of its arms/legs was missing. Jane was still tearing some of the gooey mess off her face and clothes as she waved the katana around, having finally ripped it from her belt loop and cut straight through that putty limb. The smeared blood on her face and arms added an almost aesthetic flair and beauty to her charging and slicing that damn monster right down the center. 

Heavy breathing followed; Jane eventually composed herself enough to turn around, see the closing in of darkening lights, and demand, "Daria, you okay?" 

_Of course I'm not okay. I just had a breakdown when you needed me most, because all I could think about was the horrible concept of plunging a knife into flesh--well, whatever the hell that was. I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it._

The writer said nothing, merely forcing her way to her feet, leaving the knife on the ground, and starting to run with her friend. Everything became a blur, a thoughtless act to just continue living, anything to keep moving and making it to that final door in the back, the exit to the outside, and praying to God that these metal beams laid across missing floor areas would hold, and trying not to think that more putty things were behind them even though they could hear those horrible shrieks and scrapping sounds like a deafening choir of Hell in their ears-- 

And the last door exposed them to a darkness deeper than what was growing inside the mall: it had become night. Jane merely thought a curse and continued pulling Daria out of the building, down the emergency ladder path and out the back parking lot, running down, down, down the long empty street with the sounds of screeching behind them, high up in the air. The darkness was too thick, no moon, no light, only the outlines of endless shapes in the black, and those nightmarish sounds, and the darkness growing thicker, deeper, the darkness… 

"Daria…?" 

The voice sounded so far away… 

"Daria…? Hey, Daria!?" 

Her feet tripping on a curb suddenly brought her back to reality, even though the darkness barely lessened. 

"Hey, sit down, rest a minute." 

Jane's voice kept coming to her, even though she could barely make out her friend's outline in the black. She wrapped her head in her hands and tried in vain to control the headache that was starting to rage a protest in her brain. 

"We're okay, Daria. I can't hear them anymore. I can't hear anything, really, except you and me, so hopefully that's a good thing." Several long, needed breaths. "Hey, you alright?" 

Daria felt her friend's arms wrap around her, for warmth from what now felt like snow or for her own sanity, she wasn't really sure. She allowed herself to lie back against her, head upon shoulder. It was probably closer than they had ever been, physically, though this was probably also the most harrowing of ordeals either of them had ever experienced. 

Taking a moment to find her voice again, the writer quipped softly, "You're the one that went through solid glass and nearly suffocated, what about you?" 

Silence. "I'll be okay." _Liar._ The sound of her lips shaking from the cold invaded the silence. "So… what happened to _you?_" 

Daria wanted to just avoid this question and leave life right about now, but things aren't always that convenient. "Something about putting a knife into a seemingly living thing didn't appeal to me. I panicked. End of story." If she could have seen in the dark, Daria expected she would have seen Jane raising an eyebrow at that statement, which ultimately gave her too much guilt. "A long while ago, I became pissed at the cutter culture of our generation, just couldn't understand the mentality or the thinking, couldn't figure out why it even happened. So I wanted to test the bounds of this ideology. I wanted to comprehend it so I could legitimately hate it and everyone that practiced it. So I tried it." 

"You never told me any of this." 

"That's because I forgot. I had a mental breakdown from the whole experience and forced it out of my mind. Digging a shallow grave and burying it. The knife brought it all back, not to mention every other possible thought connected to bleeding flesh." A pause. "Are you mad at me?" 

Sigh. "No, but the next time I'm being devoured by vomit-flavored Jell-O, I expect you to at least kick the damn thing." 

They shared a smirk in the darkness. 

Time passed; how long had it been? No watch, no light to judge any facet of existence. So what now? 

After a short mental debate, Jane decided she had had enough sitting around and waiting to be eaten. "Hey Daria, you stay here, I'm gonna check to see if we can get to that place Derek talked about. There's only two roads leading there, and we ran too far past the first one all the way to the end of the road, so we just have to one to the right over there. I'll go check it out, you stay here." 

The writer's light acknowledgement hinted at great fatigue. Jane took a breath and put the katana in another belt loop, then started walking down the road, staying on the sidewalk to make sure she didn't lose track of where she was. She had barely been walking a minute before a light caught her attention, small but obvious straight ahead of her. A quick look around, then a full run towards the light that, within this absolute darkness, might as well have been a solar flare; then an immediate stop when she felt her right foot come down on an angle much lower than her previous steps. "What the hell?" 

The light made the situation obvious: a pocket flashlight on a loop was hanging from a lead pipe that was balanced between two extended branches of a fallen tree over the road which happened to be nonexistent, replaced by a large, gaping hole of nothingness to which the collapsing street Jane was standing on lead into before breaking away completely. "You have got to be kidding me. A bottomless pit in the middle of one of the only exits in town. Where's God when you need to jab his eyes out?" 

Well, it was either get the flashlight so they could find where the hell they were going, or stumble on in the darkness all the way to the other side of town. Yes, hard decision, indeed. "I can't believe I'm doing this. I can't. This is insane." 

She continued mumbling as she crawled on top of the tree and sort of shimmied her way down the thing, all the while hoping the roots--which happened to be planted within the adjacent sidewalk but still appeared unreliable--would not come flying out and drop her into the black hole. Splinters dug into her skin and clothes, and the pain from that injury in the mall started to act up again, but she kept pulling herself closer and closer to that light whose brightness was shining right into her eyes and really pissing her off. So, painful experience aside, she finally grabbed the pipe from the center, lifted it up, and brought it to her, flashlight and all. 

And then the tree creaked and drooped slightly. "This is a sick joke. When I get out of her, I'm gonna find that chainsaw and cut down every damn tree I see." 

More movement at a gradual pace. Jane cursed under her breath as she quickly got to her feet, ran desperately back across the tree, and leapt towards the street the moment the roots gave way and let the damn tree plunge into the darkness. Her arms were skinned by the slide on the pavement, but at least she was still alive. She brushed herself off and then decided to look around with this new flashlight. Everything seemed different when cast within the glow and produced shadows, but then there was nothing really to see--oh, except that. 

Jane walked over to the little bottle on the ground, that read "Health Drink," just like all the others they had seen before. "Oh, what the hell, better than just dying. 

She grabbed the bottle, popped off the top, and drank half of what was inside; almost like Vanilla Coke. She wasn't exactly cured of all pain and injury, but at least she felt a little better. Carrying all her newly acquired items in her arms, Jane made her way back to Daria. 

The writer was fast asleep--definitely not dead, because her chest was still rising and falling from breathing. She looked content, much better than her previous panic phase. 

Jane knelt beside her, rocking her gently and speaking in a soft tone, "Hey, c'mon Daria, babe, I'll find you some place to rest, but not here in the open. We gotta keep moving for now." 

With a heavy sigh, Daria finally managed to wake up and stand, rubbing her face profusely to stay conscious. Jane gave her the health drink, which she grudgingly drank and felt slightly better. After a moment's thought, she gave the writer the pipe as well, saying, "I figure you won't have as much trouble using this thing, as long as you don't have a history of bashing yourself in the head with blunt, metal objects." Lastly, she hung the pocket flashlight around Daria's neck. 

The walk started. According to the map, they were going west down Koontz Street, which would take them to Alchemilla Hospital, though the likelihood of anyone useful being there was slim to none. A few minutes passed before they started to hear noise in the air again, something like the grunting of a warthog, that deep, nasal sound of pure animal nature. Where was it…? 

The instant Jane noticed the light catch the monster, she flipped the switch to turn it off and dragged Daria with her to the nearest wall. The grunting sound became louder as it realized something was nearby. Jane kept one arm around Daria while using her free hand to cover her own mouth and nose, silence the breathing; Daria did the same, though was able to stay quieter. 

Sniffing, movement, periodic grunts; the monster wandered slowly over towards them, onto the scent, maybe. Although this thing was nearly invisible in the pure darkness, they could still feel the hot air shooting out through its nose and messing with their clothing. Daria could feel Jane shaking beneath her arm, the terror of this large creature being so close to them, starting to get to her. It sniffed, it looked, it listened, but couldn't find them within the black, finally giving up and moving on its way, looking for someone else to kill. Daria stared after it, noting the huge outline and fairly human body structure, thinking to herself that it reminded her of a Lawndale football player. 

Once the sounds of the monster finally silenced, Jane let out a long, relieved breath, wiping her face and nose afterward with the loud sound of sniffling. Daria was about to say something to her, but her attention became distracted by a light that wasn't hers. Further down the road, in the direction they were heading, was a faint light, but its pure "whiteness" within the dark was so strange, so unnatural, it seemed. 

Jane quipped, "That better be God, come to give me some compensation for all this." 

"Jane, I don't know what that is, but it's light and it's in the middle of this hell, so let's get there fast." 

The sounds of their boots echoed within the silence and became almost deafening in their haste towards the light which continued to grow as they approached it. In no time at all, the light became revealed to them as-- 

"A kid!?" 

Running through the darkness and surrounded by pure light, a little girl no older than eight appeared to them. There was terror in her eyes only visible until she ran through the gate in front of Alchemilla Hospital. 

"Hey hey, Daria, we gotta go after her! We can't just leave a little kid running around in this place!" 

"Yeah, even though she was producing her own mystical source of light and could very well be another monster trying to kill us." 

"I'm going either way. Come on!" 

Daria groaned to herself and followed Jane through the gate and into the front lawn area of the hospital. The growling of dogs or whatever in the distance outside gave extra necessity to running inside as soon as possible, through a side door leading into a long hallway. The child was visible inside an elevator directly ahead for only a moment before the doors closed and took her down. Without exchanging words, the girls made a run down the adjacent stairs. At the bottom, Daria ran left, Jane, right; Daria found no more stairs to descend, while Jane made two quick turns that found her the elevator which was unfortunately still going down. They quickly ran into each other, asking in unison, "Well?" 

"She's still going down." 

"But there's no more stairs." 

"Damn it!" 

Jane pounded on the elevator button, pressing it more times than necessary, but considering the fact that it was still going down, she was really starting to get nervous. A full minute passed before the elevator returned, empty. The artist cursed again before the two of them got inside and hit the B2 button. The elevator descended for only a moment before letting them off into a long corridor illuminated only by Daria's flashlight. Complete silence and dull brown walls; the unsanitary appearance hardly befit a hospital. A feeling of uneasiness passed through both of them as they started taking small steps forward. There weren't any signs of monsters, but no little girl, either. 

A door finally appeared on the right. Daria moved forward and opened it, catching sight of another hallway with more doors inside. She took only a few steps before the door suddenly slammed shut behind her, Jane still on the other side. The sound of the artist's pounding on the door immediately increased her panic. 

"Daria! What the hell! Are you there!? What's going on!?" 

The writer pulled on the door, messed with the knob, but it wouldn't budge. Anxiety shot through her, causing sweat and heavy breaths. "It won't open! Damn it! Let me out!" 

Sirens broke their screaming, the kind like heavy weather warnings, only these were blaring, as if right beside them and headache inducing. Daria grabbed her head from the pain of the noise, staying conscious only long enough to see the door fade away and become a solid wall covered in blood-red rust.


	5. Bloody Miracles

_AN: Yes, I've decided to go ahead and rate the story "R". Along with this, any readers that've never had a "Silent Hill" gaming experience might be shocked and even disturbed by the amount of graphic violence and detail in this chapter and some following this. All I can tell you is, most of what I used here was already in the games, it's only new to Daria. Full swearing comes into play, too, and if anyone pulls a "Daria wouldn't swear like that!" on me, well, I'd like to see you stare down Pyramid Head and not think one little curse. Thanks for reviews and still reading._

* * *

Episode 5: Bloody Miracles

"Hotel Silent Hill isn't known for its comforts." 

Daria slowly opened her eyes after her little quip. Everything was blurry until she picked up her glasses from the ground and put them on. 

Standing in front of her, several feet away, was a woman. More specifically, it was a woman wearing only big black boots, and she had on her back a huge tattoo of a triangle in a circle with a bunch of various little things added to it. Her skin was extraordinarily pale aside from the black work of art grafted into her flesh. The common theme of black extended into her hair, which appeared almost butchered from her head, leaving only a thin layer that perked up in a spiked manner. 

_I would run like hell if I wasn't already here._

The peculiar woman that Derek had mentioned before didn't bother to turn around for Daria, instead leaving that blatant tattoo in clear view while turning her head just enough to make eye contact. An eerie smile resided on her face, the kind one would expect on a mad serial killer before the grand act. 

"You. Why are you here?" The nude lady's voice was harsh, like a scolding mother. Maybe she was the underworld security guard, Daria thought to herself. 

"Silent Hill has all the comforts of home, just less family and more darkness." 

"Hmph." Not the nicest response. The woman turned her head back down the hallway, into the darkness. "You came for the child, didn't you?" 

That left Daria thinking. "If you're the mother, I'm calling social services." 

"The child shall be mine, and no one, especially some smart-talking mortal, will stand in my way." 

Even Daria had to curse inwardly at a statement like that; this could be bad. She glanced to the side; the lead pipe was just an arm's length away, and the freaky woman wasn't looking. A quick lunge, but she recoiled the moment she felt an electric jolt pass between her hand and the weapon. What the hell? 

The weird lady finally turned around to face Daria. Yes, she was completely nude except for those boots, and now her fingers were growing like knives, the nails glinting in the glow from Daria's flashlight. 

_Oh shit._

And now she was floating a few inches off the ground and spreading her arms wide, preparing to attack. "I am Alita, Angel of Retribution, and I shall slay all who interfere in the rebirth of God!" 

_Oh shit._

Her eyes turned a shade of red, but quickly returned to green the moment the sound of metal scraping metal traveled down from the darkness. Alita cursed softly and murmured to herself, "Damn, the Sin Slayer has come again." She stared hard at Daria and shouted, "I'll leave you to a worse fate, worm! You had better pray your heart is free of sin, for the Order of the Crimson Sacrifice has come!" 

And with that, she simply vanished, as if she had merely been a product of Daria's imagination. Replacing the threat of her was, instead, something… almost indescribable. Dragging a giant, bloody sword almost as big as Daria, was, at its base, a man-shaped creature, man except for the huge, red, pyramid-like helmet completely covering its head and being about the height and area of half the tall creature's body. It wore over its skin-tight off-white suit two long lengths of cloth, almost like ceremonial robes except for the horrible stains of blood and likely other less known bodily fluids. If she had met James Sunderland, she would have known this creature by the name he "affectionately" dubbed it: Pyramid Head. 

_Oh shit._

After a moment's shock, Daria leapt away and pressed her back to the cold wall. Her eyes were as wide as they could possibly be, cold chills of fear like she had never felt before raced up and down her body, as if she were about to drop into a seizure. 

The writer's mind raced with numerous, conflicting and overlapping thoughts consumed and driven by fear: _Oh god, oh hell, I'm gonna die, no-- _

--don't wanna die, gotta be a way-- 

--what do I do, can't run, I'll die-- 

--Sin Slayer, kill me for my sins-- 

--I have no sin, never did anything wrong or horrible, never killed anyone-- 

--cutting myself once isn't a sin, no, it isn't, I made a mistake, I'm sorry-- 

--oh god, oh hell-- 

--I have no sin, damn it! 

The Pyramid Head continued to "stare" at her, unmoving, silent. Maybe it was evaluating whether she was a sinner or not, however it was done, however the merits were based. In a place like this, who knew what the definition of "sin" could be? 

The harsh noise of the sword scrapping against the ground caused her to jump, yet Daria stayed in place as the monster appeared to continue walking past her, moving to the door opposite her and opening it. Right at the doorway stood… a nurse, Daria wondered? If it was a nurse, she happened to be missing her face, not to mention she had various splashes of blood on her uniform and that was way too much cleavage for a nurse to be showing. The nurse monster only looked like this for a moment, the sound of crunching bones in the air, before the Pyramid Head slowly swung its giant sword through the air and through the nurse. Blood--or a reasonable facsimile--sprayed out like a showerhead--or, of course, a _Kill Bill_ movie--and managed to cover most of Daria's front side from the fair distance. 

_No amount of therapy will ever make this moment okay._

The nurse dropped, "dead," and the Pyramid head grabbed it by the leg, dragging it back down the hallway. Daria watched from where she was, unmoving, while the mysterious pyramid creature brought his prey into another room containing a huge hole, threw it into the darkness, and walked off somewhere else within that room, disappearing from sight and sound. The moment she stopped hearing anything, Daria rushed to that door and slammed it shut; better than taking any chances of that red pyramid thing coming back unannounced. 

A long sigh escaped her lips as she dropped down to her knees and started to cry. There was no exact reason for it in her head, but the tears came anyway. Maybe she was just tired, tired of this entire situation, everything that was going on. Maybe she didn't want to be alone anymore, the strain of dealing with all this was too much for one person to bear. Well, no one ever said she was an adventurer; not like anyone would play a "Daria" video game. 

The blood that had sprayed from the nurse dripped into her eyes and across her mouth after a few moments, causing her to vomit violently. Her body shuddered and shook from the horrendous force behind the retching, almost waiting to see her shoes come flying out of her mouth. After numerous waves of nausea and an acidic aftertaste burning on her taste buds, Daria finally managed to climb to her feet, wipe her face clean with her sleeve, and decide it was time to go, anything to find Jane and leave this place. 

Daria ran back to the lead pipe, poking it cautiously before being satisfied it wasn't electrified anymore, then ran towards the opposite end of the hallway, hoping at least there was an exit, since her previous one had turned into a solid wall. Six doors total, three on each side, and nothing on the back wall; one of these doors had to lead out. She opened the door to her right--then slammed it shut the next instant; more nurses, three of them, each holding a sort of giant knife like a machete. Daria backed away just before the blades started piercing and hacking through that flimsy, wooden door. Damn, where to now? The writer turned around and opened the opposite door, running inside as soon as she noticed no apparent danger. That bone-crunching sound was ear-splitting until Daria slammed the door shut, and everything turned to silence. 

Blood and dust and ashes: that was the smell that invaded her nostrils before she even looked at the rest of the room. Surprise etched onto her face as her eyes grazed over her new surroundings: a hospital bed burnt to cinders and yet still standing; a charred desk with a few saved scraps of paper and photographs; and thin trails of blood dripping down through invisible holes in the ceiling. A child-sized blood stain was splattered directly underneath the bed, and at Daria's feet were maybe four different kinds of shoe prints having imprinted themselves within the dust; she wasn't the first person to stumble upon this room, but she wasn't about to stick around to discover its significance. 

Daria grabbed the adjacent handle--which was already dripping with blood--and flung the door open, revealing the inside of a rusted elevator. Despite the situation around her, she had to monotone, "Yeah, the elevator to Hell looks promising, what could possibly be stopping me?" 

With the blood collecting on the floor already obscuring the tiles and old bloodstain, Daria forced herself into this weird displacement of reality and shut the door behind herself. A metal grate slammed behind her and the elevator started moving down without prompt. 

"Damn it, now I have an interview with Satan set up. I wonder what my eternal soul would go for on the black market." 

The nerve-wracking sounds of continuous metal scrappings accompanied her as far as she dropped, which lasted a solid three minutes, complete with the shadows of creatures behind their own metal bars and red flashes of that mark of Samael upon the walls and floor. By the time the elevator came to a complete stop, Daria was wielding that lead pipe like a baseball bat, ready to kill anything that came at her--well, that was what she told herself, anyway. 

The door opened, and Daria was forced to cover her mouth in horror and disgust: every wall was of the same rusted and blood-coated metal, the floor was replaced by iron cross-stitching, and new blood was still running down the walls, almost making them appear alive and breathing, at least making them glow with a unique illumination. The writer choked back new vomit before forcing herself out of the elevator and down the new hallway--back in the first basement level from before. Those horrible sounds of crunching bone came from everywhere, intermingling with inhuman screams and scraping noises and other various high pitches that she could barely identify. 

"To hell with all of this!" Daria screamed aloud before making a mad run to the stairs. Her vision appeared almost blurred as she reached the first floor, dashed to the exit door she and Jane had come in through, and found it locked shut, or just broken. Look to the left; nurses down the hall, slowly making their way towards her with those machetes. She was left with no other option: Letting thoughtless rage take over, Daria charged at the closest one and tactlessly brought the lead pipe down onto the monster's head. It dropped to the ground after splashing blood over Daria's face and jacket, but continued to convulse, just like the previous one she had seen "killed." Her body tried to force her to retch, but she fought against it while checking every door she could and charging the next nurse, this time messing up and striking the shoulder from an angle. The nurse swung her knife forward and cut open Daria's right sleeve before the writer could get a successful hit in. 

Madness was starting to claim her; running, checking every door, turn right and run through, up the stairs to the left while avoiding the demons, up and up, another attack, up, past the third floor and to the roof, not even thinking, just acting, acting on instinct, acting on the directions of some unseen force maybe, who knew. 

And she opened the door. The darkness of the night was diffused by the glare of the child, who stood on the very edge of the roof and seemed ready to fall against her will. Beside her was Alita, that bitch with the claws and the fashion rebellion, with a smile, as one would say, "like the cat that caught the canary." Lastly stood Jane, her back to Daria as she stood and aimed her gun at the nude woman; the way her posture looked, one would think she'd been a police officer all her life. The relief of seeing Jane alive swelled inside of her and was comforting beyond words. 

Daria rushed up beside Jane and held her pipe in an attack stance once more. The artist cried out in surprise, "Daria! Where were you!? What happened?" 

To put it simply, the writer quipped, "It's not my blood, Hell had no vacancies." 

The so-called angel wiped a finger across her forehead and stated, "If the family reunion is over, I suggest you go now and leave me to my business." 

Rage burst on Jane's face like Daria had never seen before. "Not a chance, bitch! Get away from the kid!" Her grip on the handgun tightened, if that was possible. 

Alita pulled her levitation trick again and murmured, "Let's just get this over with." 

Boom: the nude woman lunged forward with incredible speed, but not fast enough that Jane couldn't shoot at her. Alita dodged one shot, two, three, with her teleportation trick until she reached Jane and landed a punch hard into the solar plexus, ramming so strongly that it felt, to Jane, as if the woman intended for her fist to come out the artist's back. Good thing she wasn't much for foresight; Daria swung the pipe hard right into Alita's evil face. That wretched grin of hers was gone immediately as she held her face and screamed in a voice not unlike the other monsters. Alita stumbled about, blood pouring from the wound beneath her hand, until she reached the unmoving child. A huge gust of air followed the forward motion of her arm, sending the child off the ledge and just slightly into the air before gravity obviously started to reaffirm its hold. 

Neither girl had the time to gasp before Daria's feet took her running. Time and sanity disappeared as the writer dashed to the edge of the roof and jumped off. Alita's gust had let the child go so she was just underneath Daria before their hands met in the semi-darkness of the fall. In one blinding moment, the ground did not rush up the great them. Daria's mind glazed over, the same feeling from laughing gas or Novocain, and she witnessed… angel wings? From the child's back? 

"Thank you," the little girl whispered, her eyes meeting Daria's. 

Within a blink, they were laying on the thin layer of snow just in front of the hospital. They hadn't died. They were alive. Daria wished she had some confetti and streamers to celebrate. Everything that had happened just after the jump finally met Daria's ears: "--Daria!" Bang! "Shit!" The desperate gallop of footsteps to the side of the roof. 

The writer looked up and saw Jane leaning over the edge all alone and calling down to her, but she was rather hard to miss in the blinding light enveloping the child still, even though those wings had already disappeared; maybe she was just losing her mind, which wasn't entirely out of the question considering everything else that was going on. 

"Daria!? You okay!?" 

"Except for the desperate need for new clothes, I'd say I'm doing swell." 

"I'll be down in a minute!" 

As Jane rushed off to meet them outside, the child looked into Daria's eyes and said, "Please, you have to protect me, or else this world will end."

* * *

_Post-AN: No, don't worry, the story's not done yet, I just felt it would be important to bring up some afterword notes on this chapter and for later ones, since we're halfway to the end. Anyway, I apologize if any of the writing or storyline has gotten iffy; any suggestions for improvement (not slander) are appreciated. _Kill Bill_ doesn't belong to me. The quote "No amount of therapy will ever make this moment okay" was taken from _Fairly Odd Parents,_ because I think it's funny as hell. Finally, there were some scenes and ideas cut from this chapter that just didn't fit into the flow and everything, so once the whole story is done, I'm planning on doing a deleted scenes and outtakes thing, as well as alternate endings (because what Silent Hill game would be complete without the token bad ending, token weird ending, and token UFO ending? heh heh). Basically, fun for the whole family. So, yes, the story is halfway done, and hopefully I'm not boring or grossing out anyone. Ciao._


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